SEVEN teaching assistants are being made redundant in a last-ditch attempt by a Cradley Heath primary school to balance its books.

Timbertree Academy will be left with five assistants across the seven classes, a further four providing one-to-one support to special needs pupils and an IT support worker.

The school, which is a flagship academy run by United Learning Trust after it left the control of Sandwell Council in 2013, will lose a mixture of full and part-time classroom support staff.

The job cuts come just two months after the trust back-tracked over plans to withdraw nearly £20,000 from the school’s budget.

Cradley Heath and Old Hill councillor Ann Shackleton, who is chairman of the school’s board of governors, blamed the redundancies on the Government providing only a “standstill budget” and expecting the school to “do more with less”.

The Labour councillor said they also faced increased costs of pensions and national insurance contributions which the Government had instigated.

“Any staff reduction is done reluctantly,” she said, adding: “We are very concerned about any cuts in staffing and hope it will not have a detrimental effect on teaching and learning and that the present excellent levels of achievement can be continued.

“These will be well-monitored by the school and governors as we are not prepared to see standards drop.

“We have to balance the budget and every other possibility of saving spending was looked at.”

Cllr Shackleton said different schools would have varying levels of reserves which could be used to offset the effects of budget restrictions and she is keen to know if others are facing the same budgetary dilemma.

Timbertree was the first primary in Sandwell to opt out of local authority control and became an academy after first linking with Corngreaves Primary School in a confederation in 2010.

The move followed Ofsted’s judgement that it was failing and placed it in special measures. But with new leaders, rapid progress was made and in 2011 Timbertree was judged to be a “good” school by inspectors.

A spokesman for United Learning Trust said: “Timbertree is currently restructuring its staffing to meet its future needs as a school. This is driven primarily by wanting to ensure the school has the correct staffing balance for its pupils and that, as groups of pupils leave to go to secondary school, it retains the appropriate level of additional support for pupils with SEN who need it.

“No teaching posts are affected by the restructuring.”

In a statement, Timbertree headteacher Hayley Walker added: “Such restructurings are common in many schools and we know that others in the Sandwell area are going through similar exercises.

“United Learning has supported us in our decision to undertake the restructuring and are assisting us with the process to ensure that it is conducted fairly and appropriately.”

Halesowen and Rowley Regis Tory MP James Morris said the Government was committed to supporting schools by protecting budgets and increasing funding in real terms over the next five years.